Creeds and Confessions, Dan McClellan Continued

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June 8, 2024

Worked through a thirteen tweet discussion about creeds and confessions and Biblical sufficiency from Dr. Brad Klassen, posted on 5/30, then got back to Dan McClellan's comments about the manuscripts of the New Testament.

00:32: Well, greetings and welcome. I was just looking at Twitter and I I am
00:39: NOT obviously the only one experiencing this. I am so maddened by the fact that You'll sit there and you'll be reading something and it just disappears.
00:49: It just it's gone. Poof refreshes gone You'll never find it again. You try to find it.
00:54: Can't find it. It just disappears. It's Getting me that close to go. Oh forget this
01:00: It really is I Porn bot stuff never a problem for me.
01:06: I've never had it popping up or anything like that, but That is enough to drive me crazy.
01:12: It really is, you know your scroll along find something you get three sentences into it and it's gone
01:18: You'll never find it again. Just So, um,
01:23: I'm a little hesitant to say this But I was reading a tweet
01:30: That I was asking for prayer for Tom Pennington Countryside Bible there in Texas It said that he's had a heart attack
01:40: I can't even and I got to that point and Done.
01:45: No way to find it. Don't know who posted it So I can't verify that so Tom if you're great, sorry, someone said something but that's sort of unlikely
01:56: It's it's probably much more likely that that it was real and I just can't find it again Because you can't find anything on Twitter.
02:03: That's how it works So we definitely need to pray for our brother along those lines
02:10: I've had the opportunity of speaking there a couple of times in the past and Very important very important church
02:20: And of course, I think by the end of next week We're gonna have a really good idea where the Southern Baptist Convention is going to be going
02:28: If if you if you know anything about history You know that every single one of the rainbow denominations that we see today
02:40: Where their churches are closing down right left center. They're not going to exist 30 years from now You see the videos and there's 15 people in the congregation
02:50: If they didn't have the money left over from believers from past generations, they wouldn't even exist
02:56: Every single one of them every single one of them started by rejecting biblical parameters of Sufficiency and what do
03:08: I mean by that? We are only given the qualifications for men
03:16: To be elders in the Church of Christ. We are not given qualifications for women elders we're not given qualifications for sacra sacerdotal priests, and that's why we don't believe in those things and Once you go, well, yeah, okay.
03:33: We're given stuff for men, but it doesn't mean we need to have it for women the the the path has been paved the gate has been kicked open and You're gonna be the
03:45: United Methodist you're gonna be the Episcopalians you're gonna be you know, ELCA PCUSA just the list is long
03:56: UCC which was you know, when apostate a century ago But there you go.
04:03: That's that's we'll pretty much know by then next week. Don't forget right now in the month of June raffle going on for The Trying to come up with a name.
04:19: Okay, this this is the ESV creeds and confessions Which will be good talk. We're gonna be talking about right now from Jeffrey Rice The layered the word is layered cross it's a layered cross we realize it's a layered cross okay that we all we all get we see the layers we get that but it's a
04:42: A Pierce original No, no here's it's it's it's not a
04:50: Pierce original I the Dennehy designs did the design I use their template Let's not get let's not do that Okay, we'll come up with I'm sure
05:03: Twitter will be able to help me out with with a an appropriate name and Remember the the the
05:09: Bible is It's an it's not Isaac line.
05:15: It's Isaiah Isaiah line. Yes. There you go. Okay We will be getting back to Dan McClellan on not just the textual issue but when
05:28: I was writing up The last program and I was trying to find the link
05:34: To that video on YouTube I ended up running across a bunch of stuff he's done Promoting the revisionist understanding of homosexuality and it's a great illustration of how to do
05:47: Scholarship anachronistically backwards. Well the entire revisionist stuff is but again,
05:52: I'm sitting here as I think about I'm sitting here going how if someone had told me as We were wrapping up the first time we were in Salt Lake City Passing out tracks at the
06:09: General Conference the LDS Church if someone had told me That in a certain number of years the majority of the
06:22: Salt Lake City Council would be LGBTQ That there would be
06:29: LGBTQ Organizations on campus at BYU I Would have looked at you and gone that's not possible
06:40: Mormonism presents a theology of a gendered physical
06:46: God male and female the the Cisgendered reality of human history is hardwired into LDS theology,
07:01: I mean, it's one of the main things that makes Mormonism completely separate from Christianity is their their
07:06: God is an exalted man God men and angels are all the same being and Yet that's where we are had had that happen and I think people like Dan McClellan are the people who are mainstreaming this stuff into the
07:25: Mormon mind and Since Mormonism does since Mormonism has always been so deeply subjective
07:33: You know the burning in the bosom It's always been disconnected from history
07:40: Had to be it did it purposefully Purposefully that all the creeds of abomination
07:47: We're not connected to them. Nope. There was no priesthood from the time there to restoration. And so there's this big gap and so There's no solid foundation for standing against this cultural revolution within Mormonism, and it's just collapsing around it and I think
08:08: Dan McClellan is an example of that and we'll we'll look at some of that over time, but first things first,
08:15: I wanted to Okay, there it is.
08:25: Oh, it's over here. That's why it's not popping up I wanted to This is something
08:32: I I think this was posted around the 30th of May. So it's been a little over a week
08:39: Brad Flossen from the Master's Seminary Posted a thread a 13 tweet thread on The subject of this graphic and I I've seen this graphic before You'll notice that what you have here
09:04: What it says down at the bottom and it was rather small there. These historical documents do not replace the
09:09: Bible They protect the soundness of biblical interpretation Creeds and confessions of faith are useful tools which keep the church from repeating age -old heresies.
09:17: So you've got Interpretation with history you've got creeds confessions of faith and then you've got
09:26: Going pretty much all the same direction with a few variations Interpretation without history and no creeds of confessions the
09:33: Bible and it goes every which direction and you end up way out Here someplace and that kind of stuff.
09:40: Okay, so this is the the image and Dr. Klassen asked
09:48: What is what he's got here every so often this diagram makes the rounds on the one hand
09:53: I appreciate the concern it shows for sound doctrine. The interpretation of Scripture is not a free -for -all I also preach appreciate the attempt it makes to show the role of secondary authorities in God's economy
10:07: God has instituted the Fellowship of Believers Act 1711 and the Office of Elders Titus 1 9 as important means the validation and invalidation of claimed interpretations of Scripture However, I believe the diagram raises more questions than it answers number one which creeds and Confessions and that's one of the first thoughts
10:35: I had first time. I saw this is Which creeds which confessions of faith
10:44: Are we talking about See, it's just very it's just so vague in general
10:50: That all you can make is a vague in general argument You can't get specific and hence you can't make applications.
10:58: So are we talking about the Westminster Confession of Faith? We're talking about the London Mass Confession. Are we talking about the 39 articles?
11:05: Heidelberg what which ones and which creeds? Are we are we talking about you know,
11:13: I would assume everybody would say oh the Nicene Creed. Okay, it says creeds
11:20: Chalcedon, okay, Ephesus Constantinople so the expansion of the
11:25: Nicene Creed of Constantinople, okay Nicaea too and That's generally whenever when the wheels fall off because The vast majority of Protestants are gonna go.
11:40: Yeah. No Okay, why and on what basis? So Which creeds of confessions no one argues that all of them function this way in any practical sense someone might
11:54: It would be much more helpful if proponents would list the creeds of confessions. They have in mind within those blue arrows until then it's just theoretical and That's exactly right.
12:07: It is just theoretical Since the guardrails must be selected from among many options who has the authority to make this choice
12:17: Who gets who gets to make that choice? The individual interpreter if not, then who has the authority to require this of the interpreter?
12:31: So if you're If you're looking at because it says the
12:38: Bible and You've got these arrows and so I'd assume what that means is
12:45: You have Colossians chapter 1 and its testimony to Christ centrality in creation
12:56: So is the idea well that needs to be interpreted in the light of?
13:04: the Nicene Creed or Does Colossians chapter 1 give rise
13:12: To the impetus behind and the definition of the Nicene Creed These are things a lot of people never think about and and one of the reasons that I wanted to walk through this is in my experience and Mine is not a universal experience but I Have been involved in Apologetics for 40 years and so I do have a little bit more than the average bears experience in this area and In that experience,
13:52: I would say that the individuals who are most Likely to Really emphasize a graphic like this and Want to You know press it upon us are the same people that I have never seen active in the apologetic realm in other words
14:16: They're primarily Interacting with people in their own space in their own echo chamber and So you can sort of get over the making the choices about creeds and confessions because well, we're all using the same ones anyways, well
14:33: What happens when you wander outside of Your particular school your particular classroom your particular
14:42: Facebook group And you start trying to talk with people who have very different creeds and confessions
14:51: Then you are even familiar with I mean it just seems to me that a lot of people
15:00: Who make a lot of claims about this kind of stuff Don't have any idea of what was going on Before during and after for example
15:14: Nicaea to or Calceta, you know, so you've got books by Roman Catholics Here is
15:21: Leo Donald Davis is the first seven ecumenical councils So you can you can pick up stuff like this and this one's not
15:29: I mean trying to cover seven ecumenical councils and that many pages is obviously going to be very basic, but The vast majority of people
15:39: I know have not even read something like this let alone you know the acts of the second council of Nicaea and the the condemnations the canons and stuff like that to come afterwards and the
15:56: Condemnation and the anathema upon anyone who would reject the propriety of the veneration of images
16:07: All that kind of stuff. I Don't hear these people even have showing much of a familiarity let alone interacting with people who actually accept that kind of thing so That's why
16:21: I want that's why when I read this When it was first posted on May 30th, I'm like, yeah, these are the these are the questions that Make people very very uncomfortable
16:33: But they are the questions must be asked. So If not, then who has the authority to acquire this of the interpreter the one who proposes the diagram in the first place
16:46: So is is that is the diagram promoter saying and I'll tell you which creeds and confessions of faith
16:53: Will fulfill my diagram What are the criteria for selecting which creeds and confessions are to be held as authoritative if the answer is the
17:04: Bible? Then the diagram fails to portray this adequately If the answer is something else
17:11: That something needs to be acknowledged. So how do you determine it? I mean they're standing on the
17:18: Bible So, how does the Bible do that? Because it's it wasn't all that long ago we were talking about certain people who were being promoted heavily amongst
17:34: Conservative Reformed folks in the United States being told you have to read the
17:40: Bible through the lens of the Nicene Creed Okay, but which which came first and that's gonna that's gonna be something that dr.
17:47: Klassen brings up Um The contrast between the two diagrams leads to the conclusion that the
17:58: Bible lacks its own internal guardrails to protect interpreters from error
18:05: These guardrails are something that another authority must provide Because the image on the right you still have the
18:15: Bible down there But the creeds and confessions are gone. And so there's nothing there
18:22: To you know, everything just goes wacky just goes flying off into nowhere Resulting in the conclusion
18:33: That the Bible in of itself is insufficient the Bible does not
18:41: Present if you're handling the Bible correctly You're not gonna come up with the idea of the church.
18:47: You're not gonna have elders What I don't know So he says these guardrails are something that another authority must provide how does this impact the sufficiency of Scripture That's a real good question, how does it impact the sufficiency of Scripture?
19:11: Where does that end up going? Number five it is illegal to remove or tamper with guardrails on a freeway
19:19: Analogously are the selected creeds and confessions to be treated at a practical level as unassailable unquestionable, you know
19:32: When I dared to go, you know, there's a historical background
19:40: To well even the Council of Nicaea. There's a historical background Part of the
19:48: Argumentation That took place at the time was due to the fact that there had been previous councils
19:55: They were local councils. And of course the idea of local versus ecumenical. It's anachronistic.
20:01: No one was thinking that way back then But especially in the East they had struggled with modalism the various forms of modalism
20:10: Sabellianism patrapassion ism, but we call oneness theology today and And They had rejected some of the language that the council wanted to use to try to affirm the deity of Christ So there's there's a historical background
20:28: Well, what do you do with that? What do you do with? The political influence the the ever -increasing
20:40: Political influence in Each council as it comes into existence because that is not even arguable
20:50: The what we would call secular authorities. They weren't secular in the modern sense, but the political
20:58: Authorities of the time specifically Emperors and empresses
21:07: Along with Popes and prelates and Archbishops and Especially as the
21:16: Western Empire is collapsing You know the Bishop of Rome inherits tremendous political power as the
21:27: Western part of the Empire disappears he's left standing there holding the pulling the keys basically and so That's gonna lead to all sorts of problems
21:40: Degradations during the pornocracy then the rise of the huge Papal Names that you know had emperors standing outside their doors begging to begging for their forgiveness
21:56: That's gonna come later on but politics increased in its
22:05: Importance All the way through from council to council to council and When you can literally look at a creed from a council and go okay this phrase
22:21: Was demanded by this political power and this phrase was to keep this group from splitting away from the council and This phrase represents the people who wanted this person
22:36: To have a say in these things We can do that Especially with later councils we can figure out where this stuff was coming from and How can that if you say that becomes infallibly
22:55: Authoritative and cannot be questioned Then you have to admit that there are sources outside of Scripture That are vitally important That are never mentioned in Scripture itself you you can't hold the soul of Scripture you cannot hold the sufficiency of Scripture You can't do it, but there are people who want to pretend they're gonna try but it
23:22: That's why they're not doing any debates like that They don't want to go up against someone who can press them to go.
23:28: Are you sure about that? Um What of those who want to remove just a poll here and a panel there is it acceptable
23:41: Are not the creeds and confessions themselves still interpreted? Do the current debates not show that even those who confess various creeds and confessions
23:52: Still disagree among themselves on certain nuances stated within these authorities.
23:57: Well that That's a given that unfortunately again Very few people give thought to because if you've never even read
24:07: The proceedings as of especially the later councils Then you're hardly gonna be in a position to be aware of the differences of interpretation
24:19: But the more complex the question being addressed The more likely it is that the answer you're gonna give is liable to be being interpreted in other ways um
24:35: So yeah Regarding the content of the creeds and confessions point number seven
24:42: What about the commentary that is the canons? That goes with them.
24:48: This is something I've asked many many times and A lot of people don't give it a second thought because they haven't bothered to read any of it.
24:58: I Mean, you know in 1990 2003 Was it for anyway 30 years ago or so.
25:09: I was doing a debate in Boston College somewhere around this time of year and With Scott Butler and Robertson Janice and They're trying to pull out literally the
25:23: Arabic version of Of Was it canon 28 or canon 6 at Nicaea, I think it was canon 6 at Nicaea and 28 to calcine
25:37: Anyway, the point is they're pulling foreign language versions of the canons as a means of trying to get around What these canons meant in their original language in the original context
25:55: And again, most folks that are promoting this stuff they they don't engage with people like that They're not going to encounter that kind of stuff to even have to give it a thought so I've often said it seems to me that when people say well, you know you you
26:10: You just need to give implicit Obedience to this stuff and it's like, okay so you're supposed to ignore the historical context of these things and You're supposed to read the confessions in a way that the writers of the confessions
26:30: Never intended them to be read because they intended to be read within the context of the canons right is that not a given and I don't think most people can argue it because it's just not something that people think about or ever given much thought to So Dr.
26:50: Clausen goes on are those part the canons? Are they are those part of the guardrails?
26:58: I Could I could I know I can pretty much answer that for the
27:05: People who wrote the creeds Confession the creeds and the canons for the councils their answer would be of course there of course there
27:17: But the vast majority of us do not function on that and my point is
27:25: Maybe we're inconsistent and if so, why are we and Are we consistently inconsistent and I would say that we are in other words we are
27:40: Holding these to the higher standard of scripture itself So we're being consistent along those lines, but that separates us from the fact that as the creeds and as the councils became ever more
27:56: Authoritative in their pronouncements They were ever more that far removed from the authority of scripture
28:07: For example, he says the canons of the seventh ecumenical council second Nicene That's the one we like to pick on because it's the most obvious one
28:16: Which anathematized those who rejected icons and it did and it didn't do it in a couple words
28:25: It Goes all out and most of us to be sitting here going.
28:31: I don't even understand what's going on here. Yeah, that's That's the point
28:37: I'm afraid number eight. How does this diagram differ from all the guardrails?
28:42: Instituted by the Scribes and Pharisees for the interpretation application the Old Testament Did Jesus condemn them merely for selecting the wrong guardrails?
28:52: For example, see mark 7 mark 7 the Corban rule You invalidate the
28:59: Word of God for the sake of your traditions Etc, etc. So that takes us back to a biblical example
29:05: The largest bodies of confessional Christians Roman Catholics Eastern Orthodoxy Some mainline
29:12: Protestants would generally agree with this diagram yet. They are whitewashed tombs filled with spiritual death
29:19: Where the diagram fail with them? so You know, there's all sorts of creeds and confessions but the creeds and confessions didn't stop indulgences did they in Fact it was the elevation of creeds and confessions to a
29:38: Unbiblical level of authority that laid the foundation for the definition the definitions of Merit and grace and Development of purgatory and all this stuff that Becomes this foundation that eventually builds up to where you can have concepts such as indulgence
30:06: So where the diagram fail with them Was faithful there's a good question for you was faithful Bible interpretation possible
30:18: Before the selected creeds and confessions were universally published. So even if we don't
30:25: Identify which creeds and confessions were specifically referring to here Was faithful Bible interpretation possible
30:36: Before they were universally published if so, how and why is it and Why is that still not possible today?
30:46: What has changed? So in other words if you could accurately interpret the Bible Let's say
30:57: Five years after the Council of Constantinople, so let's say 386
31:08: Was faithful Bible interpretation possible before Selected creeds and confessions were universally published.
31:17: So could you Properly interpret the Bible before the Council of Constantinople Before the Council of Chalcedon gave its before Pope Leo wrote his tome
31:27: Could you faithfully interpret scripture in that context And if you could
31:37: Then what has changed if you can't do it any longer now,
31:45: I think these are Really important things to think through, you know, you're not just throwing it out there to make people uncomfortable
31:51: You're you're throwing it out there because it's important He concludes by saying
31:57: Again, I do affirm the role of secondary authorities. I must the Bible itself teaches me so But lesser authorities must never obscure the perfection clarity sufficiency or necessity of the ultimate authority
32:08: God's Word Let's do better with diagrams is Is what he says at that?
32:15: particular point and so Yeah, I think those are important questions
32:23: That everyone should be thinking through on a regular basis and especially those who
32:35: Brian Just posted a screenshot from the program here today. Oh, no, that wasn't that's not today
32:42: That's actually from the last program. I recognize it's it's a the shirts similar, but not quite just one of my many
32:52: Colorful summer shirts it About a hundred and we hit 112 yesterday, which again
33:00: That's 10 stinking degrees below the all -time high So it's like yeah, and it's right now.
33:06: It's as dry as a bone out there. So it's like It doesn't really get hot here 122 is hot.
33:17: Okay, and that was toward the end of June June 26 1990 But once the monsoon starts and the humidity, oh
33:27: It gets ugly All right, so I'll take this thing out of here Thank you for that.
33:34: I I was gonna do this to be in the beginning. Well, we'll do it here really quickly this morning
33:43: How do I get that full screen? This morning
33:53: I did something I have not done for a very very very very very very long time and I Honestly, I'm wondering why it has been so long but I dragged myself out of bed at Like 315 and I Drove down to South Mountain Park.
34:22: I used to do this all the time and Those of you like I'll go Will remember me
34:30: Saying over and over again Yeah, I was right in the South Mountain today. I was listening to Shabir Ali and Shabir Ali said
34:36: XYZ or I remember I was in South Mountain when I heard
34:42: Bart Ehrman for the first time basically say that if God had inspired the
34:47: Bible he would have made sure There weren't any textual variants. I'm sort of like what's he gonna do?
34:53: Cause the cause the scribe was about to make a mistake to spontaneously combust
34:58: I mean, what what is this stuff? And I remember pretty much what curve I was on because the the climb up to the the towers at South Mountain is a steep and technical climb and certainly a very technical descent and So It's a place
35:22: I used to go all the time I've been there I was there when we set our all -time I think we eclipsed this last year.
35:29: We set our all -time high low of 96 I think we hit 97 last year
35:36: So that's been a clip. So I think that was like I Forgot what year it was, but I had my peachy cruiser
35:42: I remember that and I was climbing South Mountain in the dark when we when we did that it was it was hot
35:47: Um, so anyway, I am only
35:53: I'm less than three weeks out from my last surgery and I'm really looking forward to Colorado.
36:02: I'm really looking forward to riding up there I'm trying to moderate
36:09: My zeal and excitement because I know that I could wake up tomorrow morning and it's starting all over again and You know the whole thing gets trashed but right now
36:21: I'm just trying to do my best to Recover my fitness before this trip and hopefully some debates and things like that, but There are certain mountains in Colorado.
36:36: I just love riding a bike up and down and So the only way to really start preparing for that is to ride
36:42: South Mountain And so this morning I get down there. You can only get in they you know, it things have changed there used to be you know,
36:50: I got Some guy who works down there would have to come down and open the gate at five o 'clock and so like that It's all computerized now.
36:57: There's a little LED sign, you know and spot -on if I opens up and so, you know things have things have changed a bit over the years and And So you go rushing through there you know get the bike out as quick as you can because the
37:14: Sun's gonna be coming up and Once the Sun starts hitting you And We set a record for the date last night for the record high low it wasn't the all -time record high low, but the
37:29: The temperature last night was the highest that ever been on that date for the low in the morning
37:34: So I knew I needed to get up there and get this done get back because I haven't None of us have been doing a whole lot out in the heat.
37:41: It just hasn't been all that hot until just recent So I'm starting my climb up Toward where it turns and starts becoming really steep and I always wear a rear -view mirror and I notice it's really orange
37:56: Behind me my rear -view mirror. I saw like whoa, that looks like a really nice sunrise So I just stopped pedaling pull over real quick Pull the cell phone out of my back pocket and I'm literally just put on and I'm sort of doing this number
38:11: I mean, I I can't turn all the way around because I'm facing the other direction on the bike and I just I'm just sort of hitting a few, you know get get a few pictures.
38:21: We'll see what comes of it later. Well You can see here
38:27: What I got and not only is that stunning as far as the color goes but look at look at that No, that's called four peaks
38:36: Out there in the long distance and that's man. How far is four peaks from here? That is a long ways that's many many miles and So I've already climbed enough to have just enough altitude to be able to see that but I mean
38:51: You could you could sit out there and set up a camera and still not
38:56: Capture that that particular timing as far as the as the as it coming up over the so here's
39:06: Nope, that's not what I want. There you go I mean that is just Wow, that's really nice.
39:14: I was like once I saw that as I was driving home. I'm like wow, that's that's impressive
39:20: So some of you may recall back in the olden days That I would post
39:30: Sunset or Sun Sunrise pictures all the time because I was out listening to the
39:36: Hadith or whatever else I was doing and Haven't done that for a couple years because that was the first time
39:42: I've ridden in South Mountain in two years. It was July of 2022 It's the last time
39:48: I was there and I I feel really guilty now What we should make that the background in the rig for the show
39:56: That would be Really cool But how would we do that? Well?
40:02: Okay. So you remember when we were a g3 we had the pop -up things that okay, we can have those custom -made just a perfect width you'd drop it on the couch and then just Pull it up and then drop it down when you're driving
40:17: We could yes, yes that would work that would look totally cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah But I think what we need to do is look a whole lot better than that light you have
40:28: That's the whole reason you're talking about it. And I know that so I think we do that with the brick background and because The Sun the
40:39: Sun the sunrise just yeah, it's just no it would it would it'd be amazing Yeah, so get the brick one because I have them
40:47: I have I have the brick one Yeah But you can't fold it up as custom and all that because we would send the image to I know that I know that they would
40:54: Print the thing. I know I know I know So we can we can find a brick to have them do that with It would work and that would be the best way because I'm not sure
41:03: I can't figure out how to do the one It can be it could it should be able to be done Let's talk about it another time that Pete that the rest the audience doesn't need to be involved in this discussion at all
41:14: Once I see him pull that Microphone up then. I know we've got we've got issues So, all right, we're going back to Dan McClellan here and the geeky stuff.
41:25: Remember the last time we were together we Were listening to Dan McClellan who introduces himself as I am a
41:33: Bible scholar Okay, that's nice Great and he is a
41:43: Mormon which one of the really interesting things for me is If you're going to apply critical methodology to the
41:53: Bible then I just don't see how the Book of Mormon or The Doctrine and Covenants Program price.
42:03: I mean the Book of Abraham. I Haven't done a search of Dan McClellan's videos, but I would just be fascinated if he's actually addressed the the
42:16: Book of Abraham because Wow, I Just don't even I don't know how anybody can look at that and go.
42:24: Oh, yeah that Abraham wrote that Right. Okay. So anyways, he's talking about remember last time
42:33: Somebody put out a thing about you know, how many manuscripts there were and 99 .5
42:38: % accuracy and I criticized it It was poorly expressed poorly argued poorly constructed
42:44: This was not well done at all. And so, you know people say yeah, you're picking on low -hanging fruit.
42:51: Well, all right We're not right here, but he definitely is in his response.
42:58: Let's pick up pretty much where we were With what he has to say of the
43:03: New Testament we have maybe 124 manuscripts. Okay, so that's that's in the the first 300 years and It would be good if he would say and in comparison to Pretty much any other work of antiquity.
43:20: That's far more We have far earlier attestation. I could play you the clip from my debate with Bart Ehrman Where he said we have far earlier attestation for the
43:34: New Testament than for any other work of antiquity and That's that's not even questionable Unfortunately a lot of times people don't really
43:47: Give you that and the whole whole rest of it Maybe three of them contain the entire
43:54: New Testament and those all come at the very end of that window our earliest manuscript of any kind dates to about 125
44:02: CE contains like 36 or 37 words of the tens of thousands of words in the new
44:09: In the New Testament. Okay now that one bothered me I'm sorry my connection to the
44:20: Cameras outside has has died it's been problematic all day actually, but I'm getting it going here once once I see
44:30: Once I see that the cars out on the road are frozen in place. I've sort of figured that no longer seeing
44:38: Stuff like that and you might go. Why do you need to see that stuff because we live in Phoenix and It was only once but I did catch someone trying to steal
44:51: Rich's car once and So we do keep an eye on things so back to Dan McClellan, so what he just said was
45:03: The earliest goes to about 125. I don't know why uses the CE thing, but anyway, and I know what he's talking about and he says it only contains like 37 38 words out of all the words of the
45:17: New Testament and I'm like okay, like I said, I don't get a feeling he's familiar
45:23: CB GM and I don't care if you call yourself a Bible scholar
45:30: I can tell when somebody doesn't do text criticism, but has read, you know, it's had to read about some of it
45:37: But doesn't actually do it because Yeah, I know.
45:43: I just put him up there bring him down a second. Um, here is There it is
45:52: Here's what he's talking about okay, and We've looked at this before and those of you who've seen my debate with Bart Ehrman know that I was wearing a tie that featured these images during that particular debate and This is manuscript p52 and It is very small.
46:24: It's about the size of a credit card. You're seeing both sides of it recto versa and You can sort of tell this was up toward the top of the page
46:36: Because you can see the top margin of above it in my presentation on the reliability
46:42: New Testament, I give you a I Wrap the rest of the text around this so you can see how it would have looked
46:50: But yeah, there are very few words there Does that? lessen
46:56: The value of the manuscript will depends on what you want the manuscript to be doing if we want a full
47:06: Manuscript of the Gospel of John from 8125 then yeah but why is this so important and Why can a small fragment like this?
47:21: Be so vitally important that we should be quite excited about it Well, the answer is given in the reality that what you have here
47:32: It's not What it's from Though it is from the
47:37: Gospel of John and The irony is most of modern scholarship
47:45: Would say Mark is the first gospel and then Matthew and Luke copy from Mark and then
47:50: John and then John's written long long long After that that raises far more questions than it actually answers, but we won't get into that right now.
47:58: We've talked about in the past It is from John John is the earliest attested of the
48:06: Gospels as far as its manuscript tradition is Okay, someone might argue a particular fragment over here from Matthew or something like that but in general
48:22: And it's not that it's from John chapter 18 31 34 on one side 37 38 on the back side which is fascinating because that's
48:31: Jesus's conversation with Pilate or Pilate says what is truth? I've really found it
48:39: Providential that this manuscript This little fragment would be from that section given the skepticism that has been expressed toward The Gospels as a whole or the
48:55: Gospel of John in particular No, the issue is this This demonstrates that the
49:01: Gospel of John in the form. We have it today Inclusive of the 18th chapter and its
49:11: Interaction of Jesus with the Romans and all the important stuff that goes with that was already in circulation and being copied in the first quarter of the second century and When you
49:29: Recognize as I said last time the all -out effort on the part of The Roman Empire to destroy the
49:36: New Testament to destroy the Christian scriptures You look at this little piece of papyrus and If you lived in the year 125 and You were making a copy of the
49:54: Gospel of John And you're saying they're having a Conversation With somebody else and that one guy
50:06: We all have those friends. They're that one guy This one guy goes. Hey, I said a thought
50:14: I Wonder what's the chance that The papyrus you're writing on right now could like last for 2 ,000 years and you're just trying to do an
50:33: Accurate copy of what you're copying. You don't even want to get into this but What would be the chance?
50:41: Of all the copies the Gospel of John and there had to be a lot of them You know how we know there had to be a lot of because Christianity grew and the
50:50: Romans destroyed Thousands and thousands and thousands of manuscripts and so there had to have been a lot of them for them to be destroying all of them right
51:02: So what would the chance be? that this little fragment
51:10: Would end up in the basement in London Having been brought from Egypt when the
51:18: British stole everything from Egypt So as to be recognized
51:25: By some guy who's leafing through all these fragments in the basement
51:33: What is the chance It's tiny Really really tiny.
51:39: There's a lot of stuff that can destroy papyrus. Okay moisture bugs mold fire war
51:48: You name it Papyrus is very defenseless
51:56: That's just all there is to it So what is the chance and So what is the value of something like this?
52:05: You know, I just got 37 38 words. That's not the point the point is it testifies to the existence of the
52:14: Gospel of John as the Gospel of John we know today in the first part of the second century and No other work of antiquity comes even close to this even close
52:27: So it really really should Be seen for the the valuable thing that it is
52:35: So we'll pull that down there again as p52 if you're interested in looking it up sometime
52:42: And that's that's actually a pretty nice Image I had there so we go back to Our Video Testament so we can't even cobble together a full
52:57: New Testament until that earliest Full copy of the New Testament and again, why would anyone expect that?
53:04: We should be able to What we should if you understand history if you understand manuscript tradition if you if you recognize that contemporary documents to the
53:19: New Testament Average that the first extant manuscript we have
53:26: Averages 500 to 900 years after the original was written then.
53:32: Why would we expect to have? Anything more than that? Why even present it this way? This is the egg nut.
53:37: This is the agnostic way of expressing thing and this again is why
53:43: I just sit back and I go Fight me it you believe in this
53:58: Book of Mormon, dr. Cosberg is called the triple. You're speaking like this about the
54:04: New Testament. You have to know The massive problems it's one thing.
54:12: Okay doctrine and covenants. Okay That doesn't claim to be an ancient document so All right
54:23: But the Book of Mormon The textual changes in the
54:28: Book of Mormon since it was first printed We have we have We have more data
54:35: Because it's a modern production about the print the printing and production of the
54:41: Book of Mormon that we could ever have a something from 2 ,000 years ago and You apply similar standards there and you're just gonna go.
54:49: Whoa pure read action changing editing, whatever change words and then you get into The Book of Abraham, I Mean really
55:02: I did the the chasm here just leaves me going
55:08: I Don't get it. You mentioned the Book of the Doctrine and Covenants. Well the Book of Commandments.
55:14: We're talking about Major changes within what five ten year period 1833 Book of Mammons 1835
55:20: Doctrine and Covenants Yeah So I you know Maybe he just doesn't even believe they're ancient documents.
55:29: I Mean, there are more and more Mormons that are I don't know why they remain Mormons There's no reason to it's just you know
55:39: Our tradition or something. I don't know but I don't get it. So Why would you expect to have
55:49: Full copies of the New Testament. Do you have any idea how much that would cost to produce? I've seen a lot of discussion.
55:56: I have the I have the Codex Sinaiticus facsimile down there And it's humongous.
56:03: I don't know if you can see that. I don't think you can see that That's the wrong button there, bro. You can see the corner of it.
56:13: It's right there That's the corner. It's huge. It's massive Is Extremely expensive to produce
56:23: Extremely expensive to produce the vast majority of Christians could never have have owned something like that so But The patristic sources demonstrate that the vast majority of the
56:40: New Testament is functioning as Scripture before we have
56:47: Manuscripts that have survived long enough To give us that physical testimony so the you know the the patristic citations of The entire and the entirety of the
57:04: New Testament Long predate the physical manuscripts that have survived all the way down through the centuries
57:12: Um They ain't nothing like that for the Book of Mormon There's nothing
57:19: Because the Book of Mormon is a modern production it is it is the essence of anachronism the essence of anachronism
57:32: I Will never forget being in the studio
57:38: KTKK radio felt like city Daniel C.
57:43: Peterson William Hamblin in studio Martin Tanner the oh small studio, too, wasn't it?
57:51: Was it really? Really? See I've forgotten that I was focused on other things
57:58: So why was it really hot if it was in either April or October because it was around conference
58:05: Huh? Rich is remembering that it was really hot In the in the radio station when we were there
58:13: I that is interesting But I remember that I remember exactly where Martin Tanner was.
58:20: I remember where Hamblin and and Peterson were and we're taking phone calls.
58:26: I mean, they're all Mormons that are calling in I mean, it's me against the entire Salt Lake Valley And I bring up the fact the
58:36: Book of Mormon Talks about Unsheathing swords and Basically scalping people and they didn't have the metallurgy to do that and these guys are literally talking about obsidian war clubs where you would take obsidian rocks and embed them in wooden war clubs as if that's what it what and I'm sitting there going so you're gonna you're gonna pull that out of a sheath and You're gonna you're gonna slice the top of somebody's heads off with a war club with chips of obsidian rock in it right
59:17: Okay, sure Whatever you say, is that where he's gonna go? I can't go there and not be consistent.
59:25: I Wow, I I don't know I don't know it but it's it is fascinating to Listen to this stuff in the mid to late 4th century
59:38: Additionally, we don't know what was going on in the textual transmission of these texts between their composition and Our earliest textual witness to them now
59:49: Here's here's the thing and he's he says he's gonna get into this later in the video, which is important.
59:55: There's only Two minutes and 28 or am I at 228?
01:00:00: It's a short video. So anyway, this is One of the most important aspects in my perspective of What we've been trying to do for years and years in preparing
01:00:19: Christians to give a defense For the inspiration scripture and for the function of scripture some of you will remember that starting 17 18 2017
01:00:35: I forget when I enrolled at Northwestern The old Pocha stream University. I was going down to South Africa regularly and I began a
01:00:46: PhD program and the reason I did so down there was because my dr. Vaughn or my doctoral advisor did his
01:00:55: PhD under Metzger and in the 1970s And my initial project
01:01:04: That was approved was to look into this exact issue this exact issue
01:01:16: Because every work of antiquity has what's called a black hole that is
01:01:25: Unless you possess the original manuscripts of a document
01:01:34: Then there is a time period between when the document was originally written and The first extant copy which as I mentioned a few moments ago on average
01:01:49: For things written contemporaneously with the New Testament that time frame is 500 to 900 years long
01:01:58: So stuff is being written contemporaneously with the New Testament our first manuscripts on average are between 500 and 900 years later, so that's the the black hole
01:02:12: That's the period of time where you do not have physical manuscripts
01:02:19: Documenting what the transmission process is about So we just looked at p52
01:02:27: If you take the later date of John that a lot of people would have 98 ish
01:02:34: Then that's within 25 years of The original writing if you put it before 8070 it's still
01:02:45: Within 55 years of the original writing In comparison to any other work of antiquity nothing comes even close
01:02:53: You would think that would be something that would be emphasized or wow
01:02:58: It's just really amazing that this New Testament is very very different than it not you did You've got people who are trying to raise doubts in people's minds not
01:03:09: You know really honestly deal with the with the facts as they stand and So my thesis project was to use p45 right here
01:03:25: That's not p45. That's one page of p45 that I had printed a long time ago
01:03:32: And my initial thinking was in studying p45
01:03:37: I Saw that P45 is very unusual we have portions of Matthew Mark Luke John and acts.
01:03:46: It's the only Early manuscript we have that has all five and probably in the
01:03:52: Western order initially And Fragmentary obviously
01:03:59: I mean that's the that's the largest chunk. That's the largest page that we
01:04:05: Have and of course that's blown up a lot of like the mark and stuff is just very small and but the point is
01:04:15: Studies of p45 Had demonstrated that each of the books
01:04:22: Has a different textual character and what I mean by textual character is again prior to We're really talking
01:04:36: Between 10 to 14 years ago now all of scholarship and most scholarships still speaks this way, but The consensus is breaking down would utilize and Dan McClellan use this to of text types
01:04:55: Alexandrian Western Caesarean in some context Byzantine especially and You had differences in one manuscript which meant that the author that manuscript had access to Different exemplars
01:05:21: That had a different textual background to and this is around the year 200 to 220
01:05:30: So what I want to do and would still love to do really would love to do
01:05:36: What I wanted to do was to use that as the foundation to try to shine a light into that period where we don't have documentation as Small as it is for any work of antiquity but to still press from that direction and As I've mentioned in the past It didn't take much time starting on that project
01:06:07: To encounter CBGM and The Major impact
01:06:17: CBGM analysis analysis and technology That would have to be taken into consideration and that had to change the nature of where we were going and then as I said
01:06:31: My advisor had a major heart attack During kovat and had to retire and that was the whole reason
01:06:38: I was going there was work with him and so That's where we've sort of gotten stuck sadly
01:06:47: But that's the idea is Yes, there is a You know, we don't know what was happening.
01:06:54: Well sort of If we only had a small number of manuscripts then yeah
01:07:03: Major revisions and changes and redaction could be taking place. But when you have a large number of manuscripts
01:07:11: Coming from different places This is the difference between the phone game idea of a single line of transmission
01:07:21: Where if you mess things up back here, there's no fixing it later on if you have multiple sources multiple lines of transmission to multiple audiences that fundamentally changes what this argumentation is all about and that's why
01:07:41: I've Emphasized this type of material for a long long time in the presentations that we've we've done now if you want a black hole for LDS scripture
01:07:55: For those that pretend to be ancient documents the black hole is complete
01:08:04: And there has to be the golden plates were taken back to heaven That's it.
01:08:10: The black hole is going to be What 1 ,500 years approximately
01:08:20: With nothing that there is nothing back there. There is no contemporary the
01:08:27: You don't have the physical realities that the
01:08:32: Book of Mormon describes Horses and chariots and swords and and the coinage system.
01:08:38: I was that it didn't exist in Mesoamerica so You can't even say well
01:08:43: Yeah, there's time period when this kind of a document could have been written no there wasn't that the first Appearance in the
01:08:53: Book of Mormon is Well, we can get in the Martin Harris stuff and the
01:08:58: Anthon transcript and all that kind of stuff Which in and of itself is fascinating as well But basically as it comes off the printing press in 1830 is the beginning of the
01:09:12: Book of Mormon and Yeah, we can now textually analyze that and the changes that have were made only oh in the past 20 years
01:09:21: There have been textual changes made in the Book of Mormon It continues to be a redacted text because it is not an ancient text.
01:09:32: It's a modern text produced by people who claim to have the authority of a prophet so You can change whatever you want,
01:09:41: I guess But there's just such a massive Chasm between discussing
01:09:48: How p45 can be relevant to casting light into that dark period?
01:09:54: Prior to our first manuscripts of other books. I mean You know mark is one of the later ones attested revelation, especially
01:10:04: But even then With the the CBGM volumes coming out and I'm just I'm hoping
01:10:15: Just keep an eye on the card rich because six months ago
01:10:21: I filled out something in German to be
01:10:30: Advised when the next CBGM thing came out. I've never heard anything back from We am we may end up with two which
01:10:42: At which point in time we donate one of them to a worthy seminary so they can use it too, but I The point is revelation has the wildest
01:10:57: Craziest textual tradition of any book of the New Testament and Yet we have a four volume set of Materials being published right now and they already exist.
01:11:12: I saw a video review of it and man, if anyone in this audience has access
01:11:21: To the four volume ECM of Revelation already Please please please
01:11:32: Either take a picture or write it down if you feel that's the only way you can do it there is a
01:11:41: It's only a couple pages But there is an appendix that gives you all the differences between the
01:11:48: Nessie Alan 28th edition the Greek New Testament and the new ECM of Revelation That in of itself would be
01:12:00: Fascinating to be able to discuss but the point is We can do this
01:12:06: Even with The most textually challenged of the books in the New Testament. You can't do anything but the
01:12:14: Book of Mormon the book of Abraham in The LDS scriptures it they don't they're not in the same realm.
01:12:23: They're not historical They are modern 1830 is modern so There you go
01:12:35: Um That's a little bit more And that is a black hole for textual criticism
01:12:42: We just don't know and we're gonna come back to that now the two statements of fact that are just pure fabrication
01:12:48: One is the ninety nine point five percent Accuracy claim this is a number that was literally just made up Norman Geisler in a couple of different publications claimed that the textual critic
01:13:01: Bruce Metzger Estimated the New Testament to be ninety nine point five percent textually accurate
01:13:07: Bruce Metzger never made any such statement whatsoever. Norman Geisler just made it up and now
01:13:13: I I don't I don't know I've seen stuff like this obviously a number of times and you know, you'll you'll you'll have these big great names of textual scholars in the past and they're gonna
01:13:31: Estimate 1 .5 percent or 2 .5 percent and and you put all this stuff together and that's where you come up with it
01:13:39: I I don't know But I just want to remind you as we play this that on the last program.
01:13:46: What did we do? we pulled up CBGM we pulled up the modules online and showed you how for individual verses chapters books
01:13:58: You can now using the CBGM databases and the interfaces that are available you can demonstrate the consistency of The manuscript testimony to these works and you can find out, you know
01:14:17: Is it ninety six point seven percent? Is it because if I recall correctly on average?
01:14:24: I think the Byzantine is like eight at 87 that identifies that but once you
01:14:30: Once you actually start looking at specific wording. It's much higher than that Because that's looking at all the variants put together
01:14:39: So it's much higher than that and and this the CBGM databases demonstrated. It's not an estimate anymore
01:14:46: Because when Geisler is writing his stuff general introduction of the Bible That Kind of computer technology did not exist and there was no human being no matter how much time they had spent
01:14:57: Metzger or anybody else with the manuscripts that could possibly Remember enough variants and remember, you know minor variants because now the computer can look at all the minor stuff and Put all that in there to be able to come up with Numbers like that.
01:15:17: Yes, you couldn't do it. So it's always a guesstimate But now with CBGM it's a computerized
01:15:28: Documentation of the most extensive collation of New Testament manuscripts has ever been done
01:15:35: That's the day we live in it's great day attributed it to Metzger and when he was called on this he said well
01:15:42: It doesn't matter. Look at all these other figures. They have estimated that Maybe one in 20 variants is meaningful.
01:15:49: Maybe one in 60 variants is meaningful Maybe one in a thousand variants is meaningful.
01:15:54: And so he took a bunch of guesstimates By scholars who were just riffing on how many textual variants are meaningful
01:16:03: And he cobbled all these guesstimates together and said they average out to about ninety nine point five percent
01:16:09: Accuracy, so okay. The problem here is Yes, Norm struggled with few things he
01:16:17: He's the one that that that misidentified how you even identify variants and how many there actually are
01:16:24: I wasn't his field Neither was reformed theology this field either as some of us demonstrated and documented but um
01:16:33: But even there in criticizing this that I sense confusion because when when
01:16:42: I lecture on this stuff and And I do this with laypeople. So I need to make sure they're following and understanding what it is.
01:16:50: I'm saying I Explain the difference between Viable and Meaningful and I'm not hearing that distinction being made here
01:17:07: Meaningful means that it impacts the translation and hence the meaning of the text
01:17:15: Viable which would be the better term here refers to the
01:17:23: Possibility that this variant could represent the original Because there are variants in the
01:17:30: New Testament, they're not viable I'll give you a good example It's the one that we have focused upon in dealing with the
01:17:39: TR folks And the TR is all the Book of Mormon had by the way Mentioned that in passing.
01:17:46: Well, it didn't even have the TR. It had the English translation of the TR Again the anachronism is obvious but Ephesians 3 9
01:17:57: Ephesians 3 9 in the TR Comes from a 12th at the earliest 12 13th century manuscript where What kind of Mia versus Koinonia we've gone through all this before look it up In my responses to Jeff Riddle and stuff like that That's not a viable variant.
01:18:19: There is no evidence of its existence in any Translation Latin Greek Coptic Sahitic Boheric, whatever
01:18:28: There is no existence Evidence of its existence prior to that Greek manuscript.
01:18:33: There's no patristic sources that demonstrate it And so it's not viable So if you have a single manuscript from the 13th century
01:18:42: That with no evidence Before it that it's reading ever existed.
01:18:48: That's not a viable reading so viable and meaningful are not the same thing Um because that variant is meaningful it changes the meaning of Ephesians 3 9
01:19:00: But it's not viable So again, that's where I get this feeling that This isn't his area
01:19:08: He's done reading in some of it, but not a whole lot of actual Hands -on work.
01:19:16: This is a made -up number that was then validated by averaging Guestimates from New Testament textual critics, so that number is simply false and then the 40
01:19:29: Verses that can't be resolved with textual criticism claim that is just looking at seven thousand nine hundred fifty seven verses and saying
01:19:36: What is point five percent of seven thousand nine hundred fifty seven Oh 40 verses?
01:19:42: Okay, that must be how many verses cannot be resolved with and like I said that that did not make a lick of sense to me
01:19:50: What the original claim was about And without a without examples of that it was yeah, it is bogus
01:20:02: Because variants are not verses There may be a few verses that have multiple variants that are both viable and meaningful
01:20:11: But there are very few variants that are our entire verse The vast majority of variants are one word word order forms of words stuff like that so yeah that part as We said last time didn't make a lick of sense and is completely bogus textual criticism now
01:20:32: I want to return to the biggest problem here the elephant in the room is that black hole between the composition of these texts and our earliest textual witnesses because when scholars talk about Textual criticism and how sure we can be and how few verses are unsure
01:20:47: They're talking about based on the manuscripts that we have Here are the readings that are unsure and those readings are the readings that are found in the existing
01:20:59: Manuscripts because many textual critics think you should not do any Conjectural amendations, you know, it should be spelled an
01:21:08: E if you're looking it up. It's not amendations It's amendations other words You should only propose a reading if we have a manuscript that contains that reading and I would be one of those people
01:21:20: I don't see any reason for conjectural amendation We've talked about this before I've responded to people
01:21:29: I respond I know I responded to TR only guys that Point to One or two instances of conjectural amendation in modern
01:21:42: Greek texts which are clearly documented right there Which I reject as well
01:21:49: Don't see any reason for them at all but that element of things you know, he's saying some say you should never have to we don't have to because of the depth and Breadth and Quality of the
01:22:06: New Testament manuscript tradition that we possess and this is an enormous assumption This is assuming that every single word that was written in the original
01:22:15: Autographs of the New Testament is somewhere preserved across the thousands of different manuscripts.
01:22:21: Yes. This is called And you you might want to listen to the
01:22:28: Cross -examination with Bart Ehrman the tenacity of the text This is a term used by Kurt Aland and discussed in his work
01:22:42: Where he argues that the New Testament text is tenacious That is that all readings even silly reading
01:22:52: That have appeared in the New Testament textual tradition continue in that textual tradition so That may sound really negative to people at first Because that means mistakes continue to be copied but what that also means is the original words continue to be copied and That's what's vitally important.
01:23:17: And I think that's really One thing that CBGM is
01:23:26: Providing evidence of I'm not gonna say proving but providing evidence of why do I say that?
01:23:32: Because so far that's why I was saying if anybody's got revelation already Send me that appendix
01:23:41: What we've seen in Mark acts and the general epistles is that listing of changes is extremely small and It is not in any way saying oh, we've got entire holes here
01:23:56: Now there's like one place in first second Peter someplace that the people go all see here's we're talking serious amounts of text here and The idea that the skeptic is
01:24:12: Trying to present is that you could have original readings That in that really short period of time
01:24:22: Disappear leaving no evidence no trace now again, if you had a
01:24:29: Single line transmission Then you I could see how that could happen.
01:24:34: We don't have a single line transmission We have multiple authors writing it multiple times to multiple audiences
01:24:41: There was no There was no group that control of New Testament manuscripts
01:24:48: They were spread all over the known world So the idea that you could have readings
01:24:56: That just simply disappeared does not make any sense When the
01:25:01: New Testament does begin to appear in p52 P4 p32 p46
01:25:09: P75 p72 p66 all these early papyri manuscripts it is the text we possess today and very few very few variants
01:25:25: Came to our notice only because the discovery of the papyri We already knew about the variants from later manuscripts, which again testifies to the tenacity of the text over time
01:25:39: And I just have to say once again None of this is even slightly relevant to any of the
01:25:46: Mormon Scripture outside of We could do an analysis of the textual changes of the
01:25:53: Book of Mormon in English as It's been printed and then edited by the
01:26:00: LDS Church all the way up to the modern period White and delights and pure and delights and stuff like that, but we know why that is
01:26:09: Okay, so we can't do see what we could you could technically do CBGM on the
01:26:15: English translation from 1830 onward But that's only good tell you who's doing the editing.
01:26:21: That's that's that's all that's gonna do You can't do any of this from it from a historical perspective because these are not historical books
01:26:31: The book of Abraham is the fevered fantasy of Joseph Smith's brain
01:26:39: It was not written by Abraham It's an Egyptian funerary document
01:26:45: Okay, so we could do CBGM on Egyptian funerary documents Okay, so if we wanted to come up with a really accurate version of The Book of the
01:26:55: Dead or the Book of Breathings in the Book of the Dead yeah, that is actually something you could do given the number of Manuscripts we have the only problem being
01:27:07: That those documents were not meant to be necessarily Accurately transmitted they could be edited given the context in which they were being used at particular point in time that changes everything
01:27:19: That changes everything CBGM is based upon the idea that the scribes are actually trying to Transmit the same text from one manuscript to another
01:27:31: Which they were That that's that's what they were doing, but it just strikes me once again
01:27:39: How strange it is to be dealing with this Again toward the end, but we're gonna do some more with Dan McClell in the future.
01:27:47: So I'll that's a good spot to to to say let's hold that there and Pick it up because we've we've covered a lot of the big important stuff and I have a feeling
01:28:02: I'm gonna see some of the comments on Twitter That's uh, you know, you're talking about stuff.
01:28:08: That's really complicated. Look. We've got a lot of folks that love talking about geeky stuff But here is a guy with a huge number of followers on YouTube and He's put putting this stuff out.
01:28:23: How do you respond to this stuff? In fact, okay, he's got 57 All right, he doesn't that's not as huge as I expected but 57 .5
01:28:32: K subscribers this stuff is out there. It's being used I Pulled it up here because I was going to if we had time.
01:28:41: Yes One of these little Videos I think that come from What are these little narrow ones they coming from Facebook or something?
01:28:52: They're there. I Don't know but anyway Can arson koi tie in first Corinthians 690 translated homosexuals?
01:29:00: He says no he is wrong wr -o -n -g with a capital W an exclamation point the end and so I've tagged that one and Go download it and that'll be
01:29:14: Something we'll we'll be able to deal with in the future as well. And hopefully this will be helpful everybody
01:29:20: Thanks for watching the program today Looks like that's yeah next week should be pretty much straightforward.
01:29:27: Yes Okay, you're not going up to Prescott next week or nope not doing that.
01:29:33: Okay. Had fun up there Good good. Why'd you do? All right. We'll see you next time.